TE. Do you need a machine (swiping?) Quickbooks is $59 one time (waived if you buy Pro 2005) and $17.95 a month. I have just started it and if you have a lot of customers it will save time by not having to punch in every transaction. Just make an invoice (template) and a couple of mouse clicks. I did much research on this and the new machines for me were like $25/month for 24 months for a new one.

Just another option to look at that I use that works extremely well and is very simple and cost effective...

I use ProPay. Here are some nice features...

-Propay costs me $60.00 a year to use.
-No machines required.
-You can accept visa, mastercard, & discover.
-You can invoice customers via email, take their credit card info and input it online. (I do my own invoicing though & don't use this option....maybe later if I need to, I'll offer it as another way to pay.)
-You can call in their credit card right on their front porch (takes about a minute to do) and write them a receipt after approval.
-The fees are somewhere around 3%, depending which level of service you'd like, plus $.35 cents per transaction.
For example, if you charge $40, you'll end up making $38.50 after the credit card has been charged.
-They'll give you a linked mastercard to access your propay account (if you really think you'll need it - I declined)
-You can transfer the money in your propay account to your business checking account whenever you want - same fees apply - so it's best to wait until the end of every week, every other week, whatever you need. I do it at the end of the week for accounting purposes.

This is what I found worked best for me and fits exactly what I wanted. I really like the phone-in option - you can make a lot more $$ accepting credit cards and the money is there. No hassels. The fees are a very small price to pay for the convenience.

TE. Do you need a machine (swiping?) Quickbooks is $59 one time (waived if you buy Pro 2005) and $17.95 a month. I have just started it and if you have a lot of customers it will save time by not having to punch in every transaction. Just make an invoice (template) and a couple of mouse clicks. I did much research on this and the new machines for me were like $25/month for 24 months for a new one.

Click to expand...

Yes, I need a machine. The 175.00 is for the machine, but I will own it out right. There will be no monthly charge like the 17.95 QB charges. This is for key in charges, which is a little higher than swiping a card. From doing the math an invoice of 120.00 through this set up I've been proposed with would cost me (2.29% =2.74 +.25 transaction fee = 2.99) Verses (QB 2.39% =2.86 + .23 transaction fee = 3.09)

Does not sound like a bad deal. Be careful of the fees. They just went up from the credit cards so make sure you are getting the current fees from your provider. When I talked to them they seemed to "forget" certain fees every now and then. Quickbooks will help on multiple entrys at the end of the day by the customers info already being in the system, but it is a little more expensive.